Fall 2019 Newsletter
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Monday, November 30, 2020 Quarter Notes Volume 6, Issue 2 Fall 2019 In This Issue Madams of the Organ ‣ Madams of the Organ By Matt Silver ‣ And So It Began ‣ The Organ and its Philly/Atlantic Female jazz instrumentalists have long faced an uphill battle for recognition, both from City Connection fellow musicians and, more often, from those charged with shaping the public’s ‣ OGD (Organ Guitar Drum) perception of jazz and those who play it̶jazz journalists. In his 1967 book The Big ‣ Member Spotlight: Phylliss Childs Bands, George T. Simon, one of the most influential jazz writers of the Swing Era, wrote, “Only God can make a tree, and only men can play good jazz.” ‣ Organ + Drums = A Dynamic Duo ‣ The Art in P(ART)nership Philadelphia hasn’t always been on the right side of history, socially speaking̶perhaps ‣ Organ Drummers an understatement to rival some of history’s most flagrant. But the idea that women ‣ The (multi-faceted) purpose of can’t play jazz never gained much purchase here̶because the women who could play, Jazz, and the need for and there’ve been several over the years, were impossible to ignore. Improvisation and jazz education in our lives “One thing you’ll never hear in Philadelphia is that women can’t play,” said organist Rich Budesa, one of many now-accomplished jazz musicians to receive on-the-job training from legendary jazz organist (and pianist) Shirley Scott. “Between Shirley and Trudy [Pitts], we knew better.” Shirley Scott and Trudy Pitts. Different, but forever linked. And where any serious conversation about female jazz organists Order Your Tickets Today! must begin. In this manner, the two are www.SouthJerseyJazz.org every bit as indispensable to the historical record as Jimmy Smith. Shirley Scott grew up in North Contributors this issue: Philadelphia, with a lot of music in the Matt Silver house. Literally. Her father ran a de-facto Nicholas Regine jazz club in the family’s basement. And so Michael Pedicin from a very young age, all Scott had to do Tony Monacco to hear musicians like saxophonist Al Carmen Intorre Jr. Steele, Philly Joe Jones, and Red Garland Kathleen Arleth Akiko Tsuruga Quartet feat. Joe Magnarell was walk downstairs. Like so many great Pat Bianchi Performing at The Gateway Playhouse jazz organists, she began on piano, but Michael Dotterer Thursday, Oct. 10, 7:30‒9 pm decided to try the organ after hearing www.SouthJerseyJazz.org | [email protected] | 609-927-6677 1 Quarter Notes | Fall 2019 records of Jackie Davis, a soul-jazz founding father who against the inclination toward tough love. “She told me predated even Jimmy Smith in centering small jazz ‘You’re banging at the keys,’” recalled Rich Budesa. “You combos around the Hammond organ. can draw the sound out with a much lighter touch,” Scott instructed. As the story goes, Scott had barely been playing organ for six months when she fell into the steady gig that would But boy could she swing. Sensitivity and swing̶that was change her life. Saxophonist Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis was really Scott’s calling card. “She bridged big band working his way through Philadelphia and, suddenly, sensibility with George Shearing-type voicing on the found himself without an organist. His, Doc Bagby (the organ,” says Budesa of the quality that likely endeared one-time music director of North Broad St.’s legendary Scott’s playing to Basie to such a great extent. Uptown Theater), had decided to leave to form his own Scott played great with saxophonists̶starting with band. Scott was self-deprecating when explaining to NPR Lockjaw and later Stanley Turrentine, whom she’d end up several years ago how Lockjaw eventually came to hire marrying in the early sixties (they stayed together until the her, telling Marian McPartland, “I was the only one in early seventies). Of the fifty-plus Philadelphia who could play the albums she recorded as a leader organ…or who said that they (most on the Prestige and Impulse could play the organ.” The truth The Count tapped Scott to labels), those featuring Turrentine is, per WRTI’s Bob Perkins, a play that club’s opening in were probably her most close friend of Shirley’s, “Davis influential. heard her play at the old Spider 1958. When Basie was Kelly’s jazz spot in Center City.” asked to follow, he Less well known are the later years, which found Scott back in Lockjaw clearly dug what he demurred: “Not after her.” Philadelphia. heard because Scott spent the next several years as his protégé, Most often alongside drummer playing on his very successful series of Cookbook albums, Mickey Roker and bassist Arthur Harper, she presided as well as with his band as part of a residency at Count over the house band at Ortlieb’s in the early years of the Basie’s club in New York. In Basie’s opinion, there was no former brewery’s incarnation as the JazzHaus. greater organ player. Which is why The Count tapped Scott to play that club’s opening in 1958. When Basie was The list of musicians who became Scott’s protégés simply asked to follow, he demurred: “Not after her.” by showing up to jam at Ortlieb’s reads like a who’s who of Philadelphia’s jazz scene: Budesa, Tim Warfield, Terell Basie may have been so enamored of Scott because he Stafford, Mike Boone̶they all played Ortlieb’s. But so did saw some of himself in her. so many other area-musicians who just wanted to get a jazz run in after making money playing the party circuit. Stylistically, Scott had a lighter touch than Jimmy Smith, “Every musician came into Ortlieb’s in that era,” said relied less heavily on the blues. She was the antithesis of Budesa. “Guys would roll in coming off other gigs, still in those musicians who seem to wrestle their instruments their tuxedos.” into submission. And she warned developing players www.SouthJerseyJazz.org | [email protected] | 609-927-6677 2 Quarter Notes | Fall 2019 Among the mostly male musicians at Ortlieb’s, it went her repertoire was huge, owing to gospel roots and without saying that Scott was as close to jazz royalty as classical training. Said WRTI’s Perkins (a.k.a. BP with the most would ever get. But the only thing boss-like about GM), “She could start out playing ‘Stolen Moments,’ and her was her playing. “She didn’t have that authoritarian along the way ease in classical, gospel, or blues.” air about her or anything like that,” said Mike Boone, Some have surmised that her lifelong partnership with perhaps the most in-demand bass player in town and one husband, drummer Bill Carney, a.k.a. Mr. C., might, for of the three or four most important stewards of jazz in better or worse, explain. Mr. C, in his own right, was a Philadelphia. “We just knew she was the queen; she was a Philadelphia legend who played with the Hi-Tones, a bad lady out there.” group that featured Tootie Heath on drums, a young John Trudy Pitts was a different Coltrane on saxophone, and story. Not a jazzer by birth̶ the aforementioned Shirley or perhaps even by “She came up at the same time as Scott on organ. In that sensibility̶Pitts was a Trane and McCoy Tyner; Trane super-group, Mr. C sang. In bonafide classical musician, a story emblematic of the “a marvelous piano player… was aware of her playing. She was Philly jazz scene, Mr. C met and a real intellectual,” said heavy-duty.” Trudy Pitts when Shirley Budesa. Scott left the band; he hired Pitts to be the new organist. Mike Boone used to gig with Pitts a lot. They had a steady club gig in Wilmington for about a year. And while he “It wasn’t like people didn’t know about her,” said Mike loved playing with her, what he really cherished were the Boone. “She came up at the same time as Trane and car rides down: “I feel pretty blessed that I got to hang McCoy Tyner; Trane was aware of her playing. She was with her and, philosophically, take in where she was heavy-duty.” coming from.” “But Trudy spent most of her time playing with Mr. C,” Trudy Pitts didn’t have nearly as prodigious a recording continued Boone. “And he kind of kept her in a certain career as Shirley Scott̶why that was is a matter of some bag. I mean, she got it in [her share of playing], but it debate. She only recorded four albums as a leader, all for would’ve been interesting to see how she would’ve Prestige, but did do side-work with tenors Willis Jackson, developed and gotten more well known had Trudy gotten Gene Ammons, and Sonny Stitt. Notably, she appeared on the chance to play with some other folks the same way guitarist Pat Martino’s debut album El Hombre, and Shirley did.” Martino, in turn, appeared on Trudy’s first two releases. In jazz, as in life, there are lots of ‘what-ifs.’ Still, Scott Still, the question lingers: why isn’t Trudy Pitts more well played for over fifty years, sharing her erudition with known? college students and doing what she loved until the very end, becoming the first jazz musician to play on the 7,000- Talent never seemed to be the question. Unlike Shirley pipe organ at the Kimmel Center (at an organ summit that Scott, who always favored playing with an upright bassist, featured the likes of Dr.